LarchSoftware guide
noctalia
The desktop shell running on top of niri
noctalia is a Quickshell-based desktop shell: the panel, launcher, notifications, and system controls layered on top of niri. Larch runs the official extra package (v5, TOML config), not the older AUR-only v4 JSON setup.
Outline only. Needs: what the panel shows out of the box, how to open the launcher, where noctalia's settings UI lives, and how the config maps to ~/.config/noctalia/.
What this page needs
- Panel layout: what's in it by default (workspace indicator, tray, clock, quick settings).
- Launcher: how to open it, how app search works.
- Settings: noctalia has its own settings UI, walk through what's configurable there versus what needs manual config editing.
- Notifications and quick-settings panel.
- How noctalia's config in the live session doubles as the default profile config for the installer (per the architecture doc), so changes here matter beyond just the live session.